The Josephine B. Trilogy

by Sandra Gulland

“I do,” he said, and fell silent.

  “Then perhaps you might tell me what it is?” I suggested gently.

  “Your Majesty, perhaps we…That is, perhaps you…” He waved his arm over a bench.

  He wanted me to sit. Wary, I sat down, gathering my shawl around my shoulders.

  “Your Majesty, the Emperor has a proposal to make to you, one which he wishes you to know arises out of the deep well of his love for you.” Minister Maret licked his thin lips. “It’s respecting a woman, Your Majesty, Countess Walewska. I am given to understand that you are aware that she and the Emperor…?”

  “Yes, Minister Maret, I am aware.”

  “The young lady is confirmed to be with child, Your Majesty.”

  Rosa Longifolia, Rosa Pulila, Rosa Orbessanea. “The Emperor’s child?”

  Minister Maret nodded, not meeting my eyes.

  “And there can be no doubt?”

  Minister Maret coughed into his fist. “It is early yet, Your Majesty, so it’s possible that things may not develop, but as to the parentage, there is no doubt whatsoever.”

  A child—after so many years. His child. It must seem a miracle to him. “The Emperor must be very happy,” I said, a lump rising in my throat. “But surely this is not why you have come all the way back to Paris, Minister Maret.”

  “Indeed, Your Majesty, I have come with a highly confidential and delicate proposition. The Emperor wishes to know if you might consider…adopting this child.”

  Bonaparte’s child? Oh, yes! “I might.”

  “And more, the Emperor wishes to know if you would be willing to feign a pregnancy—so that the child would appear to be your own.”

  “You may tell the Emperor that I will do anything.”

  [Undated]

  So. A young Polish countess is with child by Bonaparte. I’m told she is shy, gentle, sincere in her love for my husband. I am told she is called his “Polish wife.” Oh, my murderous thoughts! She is my undoing—his undoing. Is that gentle? Is that sincere?

  October 1, 1809, Schönbrunn Palace

  Your Majesty,

  The Emperor, who is in Raab, has charged me with letting you know that Dr. Corvisart regretfully demurred not so much on account of his considerable integrity as a physician, but because of his conviction that the undertaking would be eventually discovered with disastrous results. He has persuaded the Emperor not to pursue this course of action.

  Burn this letter.

  Your devoted servant, Hugues Maret,

  Minister of Foreign Affairs

  October 14, 1809, Schönbrunn

  Your Majesty,

  You mistake me. I am in full sympathy with your plea. I understand the importance of this issue, both to the Emperor and yourself, and especially to the Empire. However, as a physician, I appreciate the risks involved. When the eyes of the world are upon one, even the truest action will appear false. I warned the Emperor, and I now caution you against a folly which, however well intended, would lead to the Emperor’s disgrace.

  The Emperor’s health is excellent. The delirious joy we have all felt since the signing of the peace accord has been darkened by the attempt on his life. The Emperor would like to pardon the overzealous student who attempted to pull a knife on him, but the young man foolishly insists on declaring his guilt. That the lad very nearly succeeded has us all somewhat shaken, as you can imagine. I wish to assure you that the Emperor was not hurt in any way. This is not being made public as it would no doubt inflame concerns about the future of the Empire.

  Your most humble servant, Dr. Corvisart

  October 26, Thursday.

  Moustache came cantering through the gate. “Your Majesty,” he yelled to me in the rose garden. “The Emperor is in Fontainebleau!”

  “But…” Bonaparte wasn’t expected back until late tomorrow, at the earliest.

  “May I make a suggestion, Your Majesty?” Moustache pulled at one end of his massive appendage. “Hurry.”

  It was almost six by the time I got to Fontainebleau. I found Bonaparte alone, sitting at a table in the drawing room. “It’s about time,” he said, looking up briefly, then lowering his eyes.

  “Bonaparte, please don’t be cross.”

  “Is it too much to ask my wife to be here to greet me after an absence of over six months?”

  “Sire,” I said, using the formal salutation, “if I may be allowed the impertinence of reminding you, you wrote that you would not be arriving until tomorrow night, at the earliest. My ladies and I were planning to arrive tomorrow morning, in order to be in readiness.”

  “I suppose it would have inconvenienced you to have come a few days early?”

  “In all our years together, Bonaparte, this is the first time I’ve been late to meet you. Just once! We’ve been apart for half a year, and this is how you welcome me?”

  He pressed his hands against his chest, as if he’d been wounded.

  Saturday, October 28—Fontainebleau.

  Once again, we are required to be gay. Three nights a week for theatre, the rest of the week for receptions, one evening at the Emperor’s salon, perhaps a ball. When nothing is planned, Chastulé sets up game tables in her drawing room.

  Daily Bonaparte hunts, and with a frightening energy, galloping as far as twenty leagues. When not hunting, he is shooting with falcons.

  In the evening, at dinner, theatre, receptions and balls, we are careful around each other, our speech and movements studied. Now and again I see him watching me with a melancholy expression. I know what he is thinking: should he divorce me, or should he not?

  October 29, Sunday—raining.

  Bonaparte’s sister Pauline arrived three days ago with a blue-eyed, lascivious lady-in-waiting. Smiling mysteriously, Mademoiselle Christine follows Bonaparte’s every move, all the while swinging a huge gold cross on a velvet ribbon, as if trying to entrance him.

  [Undated]

  The light from Pauline’s windows is bright: it illuminates the courtyard, the guards standing by the fountain. A door onto the balcony opens and suddenly I hear the sound of violins, merriment. I hear Bonaparte’s voice, Mademoiselle Christine’s shrill giggle.

  [Undated]

  “I think you should just smile and pretend not to notice, Your Majesty,” Clari said.

  “I would take a lover,” Chastulé said. “The Prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin will be arriving soon, will he not?”

  “That’s what they would like me to do,” I said. What the Bonaparte clan wanted me to do, certainly—in the hope that I would make a fatal error. “I think Bonaparte is intentionally trying to make himself unlovable—”

  “Ha! And succeeding.”

  “—for a reason.” My reader adjusted the shawl around my shoulders. I gave Carlotta a sympathetic look. We had both of us been rejected. “I know Bonaparte. He is acting a part. He wants me to look upon…” I stopped. I could not speak the word “divorce.” “He wants me to look upon a separation as a desirable thing.”

  “Maman,” Hortense interjected, her voice wistful and sad, “perhaps he is right. Perhaps it would be a desirable thing.”

  I looked down at my needlework, tears blurring the stitches.

  Wednesday, November 8.

  I’m writing this in a golden room. I’m adorned with diamonds, my finest gown, a hat. Damn him!

  Oh forgive me, for I am frightened. For my own weak soul, yes, but also for Bonaparte, my exasperating husband, the Emperor. This man who is capable of being so heroic—so saintly—but who is also capable of being base and destructive.

  Yes, I am frightened, for myself, for Bonaparte, for my children, but also for all the people of this nation who have honoured me with such devotion. I concede: I have lost the battle, and the battle was over Bonaparte’s heart.

  You will be Queen, a voodoo fortune-teller once told me. How clearly I remember those terrible words. But not for very long.

  I don’t care! I don’t want to be Queen, Monarch, Empress. I don’t want to sit on a thro
ne. The crown has only made me miserable. But I have the misfortune to want very much to sit beside the man on the throne. It is not the Emperor I love, but the man. And who else loves him? Nobody.

  November 13.

  A fearful slaughter. I’m ill.

  For days Bonaparte has been talking about a boar hunt. Today the Emperor got his way: Je le veux.

  We drove out to where a huge pen had been built in a clearing: the ladies in their hunting finery, their plumes and velvet jackets over gowns of white satin. We climbed up onto a high stand, trembling with nervousness. The men were all standing on a huge platform that had been built in the centre of a pen, loading their guns. Soon we heard fearful sounds, a savage grunting and snorting as over eighty wild boars, stampeded into the pen. Then Bonaparte and the men proceeded to kill them all. The squeals of fear filled the air with a sound I cannot forget. The ladies tittered at first, and then paled.

  It has become torture here. Tomorrow, thank God, we return to Paris.

  November 14.

  Paris: city of whispers. I enter a room, and suddenly there is silence, embarrassed smiles. Isabey, making up my face each morning, says nothing about my red-rimmed eyes. “Perhaps a little ceruse?” he suggests, applying the thick white base. I look in the mirror and my face is a mask. “But no crying, Your Majesty,” he scolds me tenderly, and tears fill my eyes once again.

  November 15.

  “Monsieur Calumet?” The man who had been my legal advisor years ago had aged. Why was I surprised?

  “Madame Bonaparte,” he said, rising with difficulty. He hesitated to extend his bare hand. “Empress, Your Majesty. Forgive me.”

  “How are you, kind sir?” I asked, taking a seat. Monsieur Calumet had been witness to my civil marriage to Bonaparte. How things have changed. Now diamonds adorn my headdress and tears my heart.

  “Oh,” he said, his voice quavering, “your husband has been good to us all. Long live the Emperor!”

  This with a burst of emotion that quite took me aback. “I’m afraid I’ve come about a…delicate matter, Monsieur,” I began, my hands on my knees, like a schoolgirl. “I wish to consult with you regarding the legitimacy of my marriage—at least in the eyes of the Church. Have you had a chance to consider the document I had sent to you?”

  “The Catholic certificate of marriage?” He withdrew it from a drawer and placed it carefully before him. “Your Majesty, forgive me for being the one to tell you, but I’m afraid that there is a problem.”

  “Oh?” I said, my heart sinking. This was my last hope.

  “According to Church law, the requisite witnesses were not present.”

  “What requisite witnesses?”

  “The priest of your district, for one. Your Majesty, I do not wish to…” He cleared his throat, his hand to his chest.

  “Monsieur Calumet, I have come to you because I know I can count on you to tell me the truth. Honesty is rare when one sits on a throne.”

  He looked away. “Your Majesty, the truth is that this document is worth nothing.”

  Nothing? The word burned! I am your wife forever, I told Bonaparte that night. Is that nothing?

  I returned to the palace in a daze. I stood before the fire in my bedchamber for a time, this “worthless” document in my hand. Twice, I started to throw it into the flames…and twice I held back. In the end I sent Mimi for the oak strongbox. I’ve locked it back in there, along with my old journals, along with Bonaparte’s fiery letters of love.

  It is true: documents are worth nothing. What binds is the heart—the heart’s true story. I love Bonaparte and Bonaparte loves me. We are man and wife. Come what may, come what will.

  December 1, Friday.

  Bonaparte has spoken.

  I wore a wide-brimmed hat to dinner, to hide my eyes. We ate in silence, our attendants standing like statues behind us. Our plates were put on the table, then taken away, the food untouched.

  “What time is it?” Bonaparte asked one of the kitchen officers, mechanically hitting his knife against the side of his glass.

  “Five to seven, Your Majesty.”

  Bonaparte stood and headed into the drawing room. I followed, a lap cloth pressed against my mouth. I felt I was moving through deep water, that every step I made required all my concentration. We eat, Bonaparte stands, I follow him. We’ve been through this ritual for all the days of our life together, but suddenly, it seemed foreign.

  The drawing room was stifling hot. The butler entered with the usual tray, standing before me so that I might have the honour of pouring the Emperor’s coffee. I reached for the silver jug, but Bonaparte was there before me. Watching me steadily, defiantly, he poured his own coffee, spooned in the sugar, and drank. He put the empty cup on the tray and made a dismissive motion, closing the door behind the flustered attendant.

  “Josephine,” he said, turning to face me, “we must divorce.”

  He wanted me to see reason. The security of the Empire required this sacrifice. He relied on my devotion to give my consent. “This is a great and noble sacrifice we must make,” he said firmly.

  “You are wrong, Bonaparte. This would be a mistake! We would live to regret it.”

  There is no solidity to his dynasty without an heir, he repeated. He’d come to see the absolute necessity of it. The Empire must endure more than a day; it must endure for all eternity.

  “Name Eugène heir,” I argued. “You’ve trained him well. He’s loyal and devoted to you. He understands your aims, your vision. You know the nation would benefit.” The Empire would flourish! “You can trust him. Under Eugène, your legacy would endure.”

  “He is not a Bonaparte.”

  Blood is everything. “Then what about your nephews? What about Petit?”

  “It’s not the same as a son, born to the purple, raised in a palace. I must have a child of my own, Josephine. It’s cruel of you to deprive me!”

  And then I began to weep. “You don’t know the pain we will suffer.” I felt crazed, beyond reason.

  “I will always love you. I will come to visit you—often.”

  “Don’t you understand? It will not be the same!” He was deluding himself. This man who prided himself on his clear vision did not know his own heart.

  “I promise you,” he went on, as if words would heal. “You will keep your title. I will give you five million a year. You may have Malmaison. I’ll buy you a country château—anything! I’ll make you Queen of Rome. You will have your own domain.”

  “Bonaparte, no! Whatever you do, please—don’t send me away.” I envisioned myself alone and unloved. I fell on the carpet, giving way to pitiful sobbing.

  I remember very little of what followed. I was carried down the narrow passage to my room and Dr. Corvisart was summoned. “You’ve suffered a violent attack of nerves, Your Majesty.”

  Hortense appeared before me through a laudanum blur. “Eugène and I will follow you,” she told me. “Together we’ll lead a quiet life. It will be peaceful. We will know true happiness.”

  I wrapped my arms around her thin shoulders. Mother and daughter, we were both alone in the world. It is perhaps best that she does not know what lies ahead, I thought. I felt like a Cassandra, calling out futile warnings of impending doom. Destiny has been crossed; the downward slide will now begin.

  In which we must part

  At eight, as is her custom, my maid of the wardrobe entered my bedchamber with a selection of gowns. “Come in, Mademoiselle Avrillion,” I said, parting the bed-curtains. “I have something to tell you, but first, make sure that the door is closed.” I fell back against the pillows. I still felt weak, but calmer.

  Mademoiselle Avrillion put down her basket and smoothed her skirt, her expression apprehensive. We’d all been expecting the worst, waiting for the sky to fall—knowing that it would, but not knowing when. Not knowing how life would go on after.

  But life does go on. I took a breath and began. “The Emperor informed me that he has decided to—” In telling
her, I was again overcome. I struggled to finish. “He has decided to pronounce a divorce.” Mademoiselle Avrillion clapped her hands over her mouth, let out a cry. “However, everything must appear normal for the time being.”

  “That’s cruel of him, Your Majesty.” Her look was defiant—loyal.

  “The Emperor suffers,” I told her firmly. “He does what he must.”

  And so, by the bright winter light, my new life begins. I look ravaged, yet I will play the part, assume the costume of the Empress, recall her calm and charitable heart. After the celebration of the peace, Bonaparte will make a public announcement. As for this moment, I’m suffering an indisposition, that’s all.

  Brave words, but as soon as Mademoiselle Avrillion left, I gave in to despair. How can I do this? I’ve a reception at Malmaison tomorrow, and the day after is the big celebration, a ball. And then more balls and fêtes, and fêtes and balls, all in a spirit of gaiety. How will I find the courage, the strength?

  Saturday, December 2—Malmaison.

  It is late. I’m writing this at the little mahogany writing table in Bonaparte’s bedchamber at Malmaison. I’m in my nightgown, warmed by the bearskin I’ve pulled off the bed.

  The sovereigns have all departed, even Bonaparte, who decided to return to the Tuileries in preparation for the morrow—in spite of the snow and freezing rain. “This is your lucky day,” I told him, on leaving. He looked puzzled. “The second of December.” The anniversary of the coronation: how could he forget?

  “Oh,” he said, shrugging, as if luck no longer mattered.

  It is a relief to be alone now. The hardest part was receiving the family. Queen Caroline and King Joachim, newly arrived back from Naples, watched me closely. They suspect, I know. And what will they do, I wonder, when they learn that they have won the day, won the battle, won the war? They will proclaim a victory, no doubt. They will have the Emperor to themselves, at last—all his power and all his riches. And all his heart, they will assume—not knowing his heart, not realizing that this sacrifice will harden him.